


Antidote

by Anuna



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Morally Dubious Decisions, Psychotherapy, Redemption, and not knowing what's in store for my favorite character, even though it's a bucketload of angst, i blame the hiatus, it has a hopeful ending i promise, loving someone means seeing their worst and sticking around, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, trigger warning: a character exposed to mind altering substance, trigger warning: anxiety, trigger warning: panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 22:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2086221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz told her that forgiveness was something you chose to give, and despite the circumstances, despite knowing why Ward had done it all, Jemma couldn't find in herself the strength to forgive him. </p><p>But then, it turned out that it wasn't only Ward whom she needed to forgive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Antidote

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a prompt asking for "surprise birthday party for Ward" because he probably never celebrated his birthday like a child should. One of my tumblr friends, **leaf-onthewind** provided the prompt and mentioned Jemma making the cake. My brain took that one bit and ran away from it, so instead of surprise party fic... this turned into a character analysis fic, based mostly on speculation between several of my friends and me about the possibility that Jemma is working for someone else who isn't SHIELD. Also, I was very intrigued by Elizabeth Henstrige's comments at SDCC about Jemma not being able to forgive Ward and tried to get into that headspace to understand why. So this is my interpretation, based on how I read the characters and based on speculation. I hope you'll like it, and I'd love to hear what you thought of it. 
> 
> A big thank you to **CaptainSummerDay who is a fic idea savior. I love you more than ice cream, sweetie! (And I _love_ ice cream!)**

antidote 

— n  
1\. med. - a drug or agent that counteracts or neutralizes the effects of a poison  
2\. anything that counteracts or relieves a harmful or unwanted condition; remedy

 

*

_“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.” - Jim Morrison_

* 

Jemma owed herself a good cry. 

She wasn't certain she deserved it. But she didn't cry after Hydra reveal, and she didn't cry after Fitz getting injured. She didn't cry or yell in protest when Coulson demanded of them to work with Ward again, she just did what she was told. She was good at that. Following the rules. 

_It makes me feel good._

She didn't cry when Ward handed her a folder of papers stolen from a Hydra base. His lip was cut and his cheek bruised; and even though she hated him (she told herself that she did), she cooperated, she - 

She read it. Actually, she didn't need to read it. Two pages in, she knew what it was. 

Because it was hers. 

Coulson didn't understand what was behind her expression. What mattered was if she could find an antidote, and how quickly she can make it, and how effective it would be. _We can't afford a mass production of a mind control drug_ , he said. Everyone looked at Ward. But they shouldn't have. They should have looked at her. 

“Is it a poison?” Coulson asked when she was finished. 

“No Sir,” Jemma said. “It's a mind altering substance.”

“Mind altering substance?”

Jemma couldn't make herself look at Ward. 

“Yes, Sir. One that makes a subject susceptible to outside influence.”

“What does that mean, Agent Simmons?”

Jemma tried to slow down her breathing, to wet her lips. It didn't work. 

“It's a mind control drug, Sir.”

*

Six months could be long, or could pass in a blink of an eye. The day when Coulson asked for a truth serum sometimes felt like lifetime ago, and sometimes like yesterday. 

She made it – nobody asked how – they left her to work and trusted her to succeed and used the substance she created running on anxiety and last of the Fitz's tea stash; used it to interrogate a prisoner before proper testing. 

She still remembered the way the words felt in her mouth. “Expected efficiency is two hours,” she had said. “And best applied with a low dose of sedative, which would make the subject more pliable.”

All correct, clinical, scientific words that felt safe. All of them. 

Ward was strapped to a chair. She didn't look at him. Wouldn't. The shape and size of his arm was familiar. She knew she had a better access to a vein on his right arm so she requested that one to be uncovered. She snapped on the gloves, thought of Eric Koenig, of his lifeless body and of Ward's deadly signature on him. She thought of Fitz in induced coma, awaiting two more procedures which might and might not help. 

She administered a dose of benzodiazepine and a dose of her own drug after, informed Coulson to call her should her help be needed and left. 

And she thought she didn't feel a thing. 

Coulson called her to his office three hours later. She still remembered how he was staring into empty space, with an expression she couldn't decipher. He looked tired. And older. 

“Is everything all right, sir?” she asked. And he very very slowly shook his head. 

“No,” he said. 

“Did it not work?” Jemma asked then and her mind was already prepared to jump into the search for the most likely cause of failure. However Coulson looked at her, and his look made her feel uncomfortable. A thought passed her mind, the finishing year of the Academy, and the honor of being the youngest consultant on a project that required her to sign half dozen of documents. 

_You understand, Cadet Simmons, that this is something you are not allowed to share with anyone._

_Yes, Sir._

“Oh, it did work,” Coulson said. 

“Then what is wrong?” she asked and it took a couple of moments, and then she thought of Ward. “Did it -?”

And somehow Coulson knew what she was asking. 

“Ward is fine,” Coulson said. “Physically.” 

“Oh,” she said, like she understood. She didn't really want to know what Coulson had learned thanks to her truth serum. 

*

A week after that the doctors woke Fitz up. The prognosis was optimistic. The swelling in his lumbal area was decreasing. With the aid of physiotherapy he would be able to walk. 

*

Ten days later Ward escaped the heavily guarded facility where he was being held and disappeared into unknown. 

*

A month after that Coulson gathered them in his office and handed them the transcripts of the interrogation. 

And ordered them all to read it. 

Skye protested. Jemma didn't, Jemma did as she was told. 

In retrospect it was only one question that set off the rest. One question, and the answer that lead Coulson to ask other unplanned questions. 

_How old were you when you met John Garrett?_

She still remembered how Fitz dropped the folder on the table and wheeled himself out of the room, despite his hands shaking. 

*

Two days later Fitz said during the dinner, 

“Now I know why he never liked being clapped on the shoulder,”

and everyone had lost the appetite. 

*

Fitz was the one who suspected that the warning messages were from Ward. Nobody believed him, or rather they did not want to believe him. 

It had been a mistake, but then, there had been an abundance of mistakes caused by the fact that everyone was a potential traitor. There was no more trust left. This time, the lack of trust almost cost them Skye's life. 

Ward came back to them bruised, cut and bloodied, carrying unconscious Skye in his arms. He didn't know what Raina had done to her, or didn't get to do; but he walked in, pretending to follow Raina's cause, took Skye with him and somehow fought his way out. 

She was unscratched. He was bleeding without complaint. 

It was Trip who offered to patch him up. 

*

Fitz forgave him. It was like he couldn't wait to do it. Skye protested and even criticized him. There was a fight. Skye left the room crying. Jemma said something harsh, something about Fitz not being able to understand, and then he turned around, leaning onto his crutch, and told her in a voice he never used with her before, that it was his bloody right. That he would choose if he would forgive. That forgiveness was something you give anyway.

“I don't think you can understand,” Fitz said. “You have parents who call you, you grew up told that you were special, you grew up worthy, and you have no idea what it is like to grow up without a birthday cake!”

*

In retrospect, Coulson should have asked how was she able to come up with the truth serum so quickly. 

He didn't. He did tell them that they weren't allowed to make omissions such as not realizing that a senior agent brought a practically non existing young adult into the Academy, forged all his personal files, while making a criminal record go away. (The file wasn't sealed, as it should have been. It was nonexistent. _The red flags were there_ , Coulson had been saying. _How did I miss them?_ ) 

Coulson did not ask about the antidote she was preparing either. She was a prodigy, a genius with two Ph.D.'s. 

“What's the matter, Jemma?” Fitz asked at one point and she didn't want to reply. He kept asking for couple of days. She refused to tell him anything, struggling with a proper delivery method, and there was only one person she could ask for help. 

“Why should I do it?” Fitz said. She blinked, like she didn't understand what he was asking. “Jemma. This kind of antidote usually requires several months of research. And trials. And yet it seems to work, on mice at least, and I am wondering how.”

She was silent. 

All the papers she had signed as a cadet had a proper SHIELD logo on them. When a senior agent gives you a task, you fulfill it. Jemma always followed the rules. 

“It doesn't – doesn't matter, Fitz! All it matters is to ensure the antidote before the mission -”

“Oh hell no,” he was saying. “Hell no, that is not all that matters. Don't you see what you're doing?”

“What am I doing, Fitz? I am trying to help! I am trying to -”

“Follow the orders, right? But it shouldn't matter _how_? Jemma -” the hand clutching his crutch was shaking, “It's not right! Remember when you wanted to take Skye's blood work to The Hub? When you wanted to upload all the data to the network? Remember? What did you care about _then_??”

She stopped.

“The truth,” she said with absolute conviction. How could he even ask her this?

“ _Think about it_ , Jemma,” Fitz leaned against the lab table and pressed his palms together, closed his eyes for a moment. “Imagine. Imagine what could have happened to _Skye_ if you've done it. Imagine who could have read it,” Fitz said. 

*

It didn't go according to the plan. 

*

It all went to hell. Instead of chasing the Hydra men, they were chasing Ward through the woods surrounding the base. When they finally found him, he looked like an animal on the run, furious and scared; and before anyone could react he attacked Coulson. 

“They have given him the serum,” Jemma was shouting over the fight (which Coulson probably wasn't going to win) and May looked at her just once. 

She managed to knock Ward down – and then it took Coulson, May _and_ Trip to hold him, so that Jemma could inject him with the antidote. A moment after he struggled out of their hold, crawled backwards until his back hit a tree and pulled a gun. 

His hand was shaking. 

“Who are you!” he was shouting. 

Was it working?

“Ward,” Coulson said and he looked at Coulson wildly. “We're here to help you.”

“I don't know you! Who are you?!!” he shouted and Jemma recalled her initial work, back at the Academy, remembered writing down the notes, _the serum could affect emotional stability and cause mild to extreme anxiety and panic reactions_. In front of her Ward was sweating, his breathing was shallow and he looked terrified. 

The antidote was apparently causing the same. She should take his blood pressure. He could have a heart attack. He could have a seizure. 

“Ward,” Skye said softly, “Grant.”

He seemed to snap out of the panic and for a moment, to recognize her. The pleading look on his face turned into pain and then fear, and he screamed. In his shaky left hand he was holding a gun – not pointing it at anyone, but in these circumstances Jemma was starting to fear he'd point it at himself. 

“Grant,” Skye insisted, carefully nearing him. He drew up his knees, curled his tall, long body as if he were a child. “Grant, give me your gun. We won't hurt you, I promise.”

He was looking at her like a beaten dog. Like an animal that wanted to trust and crawl back into safety, and couldn't; didn't dare to. “Grant,” she continued. He blinked, as if his vision cleared and shook his head. 

He started to cry. 

Pain stabbed through Jemma's chest. 

“No, you don't understand,” Ward was saying. “Go. _Go_ , I will hurt you, I will hurt you again and I don't want to hurt you, please go, just go, go -”

“Ward,” Fitz said warmly, carefully coming closer. 

“You're not gonna hurt us,” Coulson supplied, quietly. His lower lip was split and bleeding. Ward looked at him, shaking his head. “We won't let it happen.”

“We'll help you, Ward,” Fitz continued. “I promise. I promise, I'll take care of you Ward, I promise.”

“Come on Ward,” Skye was kneeling next to him, reaching out slowly for his left hand. Jemma remembered the Beserker staff, the edge and desperation she was trying not to see, and the thing was, it was all back. It had all returned, all of it except the anger. Skye touched his bicep, careful not to sit or hover over him, and Jemma supposed it was meant to keep him from frightening further. “Come,” Skye's voice was barely a whisper and they were all so quiet, quiet enough for the words to be heard. Jemma watched as he handed over the gun, trying to rein in his fear and hold back tears. “Good,” Skye said, but he curled, face hidden behind his knees and cried. 

Loudly. 

Desperately. 

Nothing that Skye or anyone else said could comfort him. 

*

Jemma kept him mildly sedated inside a quiet, half darkened room, but it didn't help. If he slept he tossed around, moaning and calling names ( _Skye_ and _John_ , and _John, please, no_ and names Jemma didn't recognize.) He tried not to look at her when he was awake, and the fear in his eyes didn't seem like fear of what she could do to him. 

But maybe it should have been. 

*

“No,” he was standing in a far corner of the infirmary room, and Jemma was wearing slippers and the dressing gown mum sent two years back for Christmas. She couldn't sleep so she came here to check on him. (She came to check on him three times a night.) “No, no, _please go_ , Simmons, please go -” he kept repeating. 

He was so much taller than her and yet he seemed small. 

“Ward,” she tried to keep her voice even for his sake, and if she didn't, he could have ended up only more frightened. The serum and the antidote were out of his system by now, she checked, three times. This was something else. 

“No, Simmons. No. I'll hurt you -”

“Ward,” she said when the airtight door of a medical pod flashed before her eyes, and his drawn, pinched face with its dark contrasts and eyes she couldn't look at. “No. No.”

“But I already did,” his breathing was quick and shallow and he was holding his chest. Reduced oxygen supply due to accelerated and shallow breaths causes thoractic pain. _Panic attack_. “I almost killed you, I almost killed both you and Fitz, I almost killed Coulson, I couldn't tell who any of you were -”

“Grant,” she said. It felt so strange in her mouth, and it cracked something inside of her. “You -..,” she started, realizing she couldn't say _you didn't mean to_ , but she didn't mean to partake in producing something as dangerous as a mind controlling drug. She found herself choked on a notion that her best intentions weren't better than his. Jemma fought for words. “You won't hurt me, Grant, you don't wish to hurt me, right?”

He paused and looked at her, broken and frightened. It was so hard looking at him like this. Was this him? The real him? Was this what Fitz was constantly trying to tell her about? Was this what they all failed to see?

He shook his head, palms pressed against the wall behind him. 

“If I come closer, will you hurt me?” she asked. He shook his head again. Jemma approached, feeling how her own breathing turned shallow. Forty eight hours and he had nightmares, panic attacks and recurring fears that he would end up hurting someone. “Okay. See? It's okay. I'm coming closer.”

“Yes,” he said. 

“I will help you,” she said then. He nodded. So much trust. Such pleading look. As if he was ready to kneel in front of her and beg. Jemma reached out with her hand, and she didn't want to touch him, she didn't like it, not since Providence, not since... everything, but this was her fault, this was her, and she had to fix it. She had to fix it. He let her take his hand. It felt exactly like it felt before. 

*

“Sir,” it was six in the morning and Jemma was aware that anyone could see that she hadn't slept at all. Coulson already had his suit and his tie and nothing seemed out of place. She held onto that thought. “I would like to make an official request, Sir.”

Coulson's expression was asking for an explanation. She didn't want to give him one. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“I want to request immediate post traumatic treatment for A – for Ward, Sir,” she said, twitching when she almost called Ward an agent. Coulson didn't react at all. He regarded her for a moment and nodded. “Two days after exposure to traumatic situation he is developing more and more signs of post traumatic reaction. I am not an expert, Sir -”

“It will be done, Agent Simmons. Anything else?”

Jemma hesitated. She looked at her hands and struggled with the heavy pain in her chest. 

“Yes Sir,” she managed. “I would like to request the same... for myself.”

*

The man brought for counseling sessions, Sam Wilson, had a kind face even when he was seriously listening to her. 

“Fitz kept asking why. It was plain as a day that he would.... harm us on order. But Fitz kept... pleading with him not to do it and -” 

Jemma closed her eyes. She remembered the door closing, remembered beating her fist against the medic pod wall, remembered Ward nearing the control panel. “He didn't look at us.”

“He didn't?” Sam asked. Jemma stared at her hands. Didn't you look at someone you were going to kill? You did if you had a gun. If Ward had a gun, he wouldn't have missed. 

Ward probably did have a gun.

“No.” 

“Why do you think that is?” Sam asked. She shook her head. “Go with the first thought.”

“Cowardice,” Jemma said. “We were kind to him. He was our friend. How could he do that to us?” 

Sam didn't offer an answer. Jemma knew the explanation. Jemma had read the transcript that had made Coulson so silent; made Fitz's hands shake and made Skye quietly cry in her bunk when she thought nobody would hear it. 

“Bad childhood doesn't excuse him! Cannot -”

“No,” Sam said. “I agree with you. What would you say if I told you that the point of knowing isn't excusing?” 

Jemma blinked. Confusion made her hesitate, this was something she fought with Fitz over. Sam leaned forward, with his elbows on his knees. “You're a biochemist, right?”

“Yes,” she said. But even that admission of a simple fact brought a tension clawing up her chest. 

“You understand how medicines work, right? So, how you you make a medicine? Say, I am sick and you need to cure me. What do you need to know?”

“Your -,” Jemma took a deep breath to focus. “I need to find what is causing your condition.”

“Why, Jemma?”

“So that I could treat the cause. So that I could - _oh_.” 

 

*

That day, after Sam Wilson left after talking to both of them, Jemma glanced at Ward through half open door of his infirmary room. 

He seemed to stand a bit taller. 

*

“It wasn't cowardice,” she said to Sam. “ _Maybe_ it wasn't. I don't know. But it still doesn't excuse him. I can't – I can't forgive him. He almost killed Fitz and me.”

“I'm not asking you to,” Sam said. Jemma nodded. “What do you think it was?” 

She weighed the thought gnawing at her mind ever since the conversation the had the day before. Wondered what it meant if she was right. 

“Shame,” she said. Something in her chest crumbled away, making her feel so light and yet at the same time so sad. 

*

“We forced him to tell us,” Jemma started. Sam's face was kind as always, interested and focused on things she was saying. 

“How did you do that?”

“Director Coulson -,” Jemma paused and fisted the fabric of her throushers. Her palms were sweaty and her chest uncomfortable. She felt like she wanted to hide, she wanted to run away, she didn't want to tell him this. He'd look at her with disgust. “Director Coulson ordered me to create a truth serum. A substance that will -,” she stopped. He ordered her. She followed the order. That was how things were supposed to work. She swallowed tightly. Her voice was strained, shaky. “It was a – successful -”

Sam's eyes were serious, but there was no judgment. No shaming, no disgust, no condemnation. He was merely waiting for her to continue. She swallowed again. 

“The worst thing is,” she leaned her elbows on the table and placed her face inside her palms. “The worst thing is, that I was _able_ to make it.”

Sam inclined his head. Jemma folded her hands, like in prayer. She never prayed, though. She believed in science, in cause and effect and knowledge. It was her realm of safety, a world that worked in understandable and pure logic. 

Only it turned out, it didn't exist. Pure things didn't exist.

“Back at the Academy,” she started, “when I was a cadet in a finishing year, one of the high ranking agents approached me with an offer. To take part in a confidential research program. We were trying to produce a specific chemical compound. It was challenging and it was brilliant and at that time I did not think much of practical use. It was after all, a theoretical research meant to further our – our understanding.”

She paused and Sam waited. 

“We were working on a compound that would be able to affect higher brain functions. Eliminate... willing control. Make a subject susceptible to extremal influence. It was not a finished product. However... it was the groundwork. Last month... we learned that Hydra developed a mind control drug. Ward... managed to find and steal their data about it. It... all it took was a quick glance across several pages inside of that file. One can, after all, always recognize their own work.”

*

At the end of their last meeting Sam told her,

“This doesn't work like antibiotics. It will probably get worse before it gets better. However, if you find you need to talk to me again -”

She nodded. And promised she would request another ten sessions if necessary. 

*

Sam has been right. 

It did get worse. 

*

It was three in the morning. She couldn't sleep. She didn't sleep for days, and she didn't sleep because she kept thinking, because she was trying to find one answer to all the questions, but every time she stumbled across one, it didn't fit all of it. 

If Ward cared about them how could he betray them?

If Garrett did bad things to him, why didn't he tell anyone?

(If Garrett was the root of the problem, then why did all of them instantly trust him? Was it his clearance level? The fact that he was Coulson's friend? That he came to them as Ward's SO? That he helped securing the cure for Skye?) 

Why did Ward listen to orders if he knew he would hurt people? Good people? People who were his friends?

Why did Ward listen to orders?

( _What did you care about, Jemma?_ )

It was three in the morning and Jemma couldn't think any more. Couldn't run in empty circles inside her head, couldn't hate Ward any more even if she tried, couldn't forgive him even though part of her wanted to. 

So she decided she'd do something. 

Find the cure for the cause. Create something that could help. She didn't make cakes in ages. Cakes like birthday cakes, proper cakes, cakes that brought joy. Last time, it was when she was visiting home for Christmas. (It was three years ago. It was... snow and laughter and people she loved.) 

She didn't know how much time had passed, but it was still dark when Fitz walked to find her in a mess of flour and powdered sugar and tears. (You couldn't make cakes with tears in your eyes.)

“Jemma?” he asked. “What's the matter?” 

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, spreading flour all over. 

“Fitz,” she sniffed. “If one... if a person grows up in a family that doesn't love him,” she bowed her head, looking at the mess in front of her. “Why doesn't loving him or being kind to him help?” 

Fitz remained rooted to the spot. She didn't dare looking at him, but she could guess that his face was serious and his eyes hard. 

“What does love mean, Jemma?” he asked finally. And she looked at him again and tried to answer. The though of her mother and father and everyone _she_ loved – how she wanted to protect them when they couldn't, help them when they needed it. How she loved Skye and Coulson and May and … Ward. Ward, as well. If she hadn't all of this wouldn't hurt at all. 

Love meant expecting something. Love meant counting on someone. And love meant hurting if they hurt you. 

“Why did you forgive him?” she asked and Fitz's face turned soft. 

“Because I wanted to,” he said. “Why is it that you can't? Jemma, if I did something awful – something horrible – would you not forgive me?” 

“Yes -,” she said through a sob. “Of course I would. You are my – you are my friend.”

“Exactly,” he neared her, looking concerned. “Because loving someone means staying even if they're wrong -”

“But he doesn't deserve – I don't deserve -”

“What, Jemma?”

He was so close. Falling into his open arms was so safe. And through sobs she told him all, she told him about the research, she told him how all she wanted was to learn, she told him how exciting it had been. How she followed the orders and did whats he believed was right and didn't question it for one second. How she was able to create the truth serum thanks to this same knowledge, and took Ward's will away. Not once, but twice. 

“You should have told me, Jemma.”

“They could have been Hydra. That research could have been -”

“And you couldn't know. You _didn't_ know. Just like Ward didn't know what Garrett was going to do to him. There is no choice if you're not aware you have one.” 

Jemma held onto her best friend. 

“You should have told me,” he repeated into her hair. 

“I couldn't.”

“Why?”

Jemma moved to look at him, but the tears wouldn't stop. He could forgive so easily and she couldn't, and finally she understood why. 

It wasn't Ward any more whom she needed to forgive. 

“Because – because I was afraid you'd look at me the way I look at Ward.” 

*

A month later Jemma knocked on the door of Ward's room. It was early enough to catch him before he went for his morning run, which meant nobody was on the corridors and nobody saw her carrying a chocolate cake in her hands. 

When Ward opened the door he failed to hide his surprise. 

“Simmons,” he said and managed a small smile. He looked at her, at the cake and back at her “What - what brings you here?”

“I wanted to give this to you,” she said, lifting the cake up a bit. He looked as if he was unsure what to say or how to react at all. Jemma gave him her best smile. 

“Why?” 

“I – oh, I know it's not your birthday. But -” her smile faltered and she bit her lip. “I wanted to do this for you. And I wanted to apologize.”

His eyebrows shot up and he looked at her in confusion. Despite that, he offered her to enter his private space, so they wouldn't have to continue the conversation in the hallway. Jemma walked inside and realized that she hadn’t properly seen the inside of his quarters. She picked the small couch to sit on and placed the plate with the cake on her knees; looked around and realized everything in here was as neat and tidy as his bunk on the Bus had been. Ward sat next to her, not too close and not too far away either. 

“I am sorry for making the truth serum,” she said, recalling everything she read in his confession. “I am sorry for giving it to you.”

“You don't have to apologize,” he was looking down, somewhere near his feet, and then at her face. “It was an -”

“An order, yes,” she said. “That doesn't make it okay.”

She let the silence fall upon them, and it wasn't uncomfortable or strained. It was somehow subdued and sad, but it was okay. 

“I never asked you why,” she said. “Why you trusted... Garrett, and not us. I didn't even try. And I feel that... we can't say we've been properly trying to help you if we weren't even aware you needed helping. And -” she paused, taking the plate with the cake and offering it to him. After a slight hesitation Ward took it. “It was like treating a disease without knowing a cause. And there is no help without understanding the cause.” 

Ward looked at the gift she'd given him, long and quiet before looking up at her and giving her a smile. It was almost as she remembered only softer, somehow broken, just like the man sitting next to her was. 

“I am sorry, Ward. For everything that happened to you. For all that you've been out through. For all of us.”

He nodded and looked away for a moment; composed himself and looked at her. 

“I am sorry for betraying you,” he said. She nodded. 

“I accept your apology,” she said. He smiled again. 

“Thank you,” he said, paused, and it seemed like something lighter, happier crossed his face. “Uh... I won't be able to eat this by myself. Would you like to share?” 

And Jemma looked at him, recognizing the kindness she once knew, the man who helped her to face her fear, the man who let her bluff at him, tease him, the man who, after all, saved her life. 

“Yes,” she said. “I would love to.”


End file.
